What Wright Gets Wrong About Dirty, Ugly Coal

At the 11 plants provided with taxpayer money last week, nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions increased by about 25 percent in 2025 from the year prior. Yes, that’s a whopping 25 percent in just one year.  

Antelope Valley Station (North Dakota), Columbia Energy Center (Wisconsin), and Sooner Power Station (Oklahoma) all saw some of the largest increases in mercury emissions in the country, with Columbia’s mercury pollution up 67 percent year over year.  

At Apache Generating Station in Arizona, its power generation decreased in 2025, yet its pollution spiked. Apache emitted 114 percent more sulfur dioxide, 24 percent more nitrogen oxide, and 210 percent more mercury in 2025, emitting more dangerous air pollution while adding less power to the grid. 

While Trump and Wright describe coal as “clean,” the reality is very different. From cradle to grave, coal is the dirtiest fuel, and it’s fueling the climate crisis. Pollution from coal plants costs up to $26 billion a year in additional emergency room visits, more strokes and heart attacks, and childhood asthma, one study found. 

Based on the pollution they spewed last year, the 11 coal plants given federal bailouts were responsible for 450 to 650 premature deaths per year from particulate matter and ozone, 160 emergency room visits, and 56,130 asthma attacks in children a year.  

In just the first year of Trump’s second term, coal plant emissions of sulfur dioxide increased by 18 percent, nitrogen oxides increased by 12 percent, and mercury was up 9 percent, compared to 2024. The price tag from this extra pollution: as much as $17 billion in just public health costs from increased respiratory issues, illnesses, and asthma attacks that led to more ER visits and hospital admissions; more days out sick from school or work; and early deaths.   

And while Trump has been quick to hand out federal largesse to coal plant owners, coal miners themselves have been forgotten. The Trump administration hit pause on new rules that would’ve reduced dangerous silica exposure for miners.  

Two decades ago, coal provided more than half of the electricity in the United States, by far the largest source of power. Today it’s just 16 percent, which is less than gas, nuclear, or even renewable energy. Even with Wright’s desperate attempts to revive coal, no serious analyst expects coal’s share of electricity generation to grow. The market is clear: Coal just doesn’t make economic sense.  

Consider the J.H. Campbell Complex in Michigan, one of the many plants the DOE has ordered to keep running. So far, the DOE’s order to keep it running has cost utility customers a whopping $336 million, according to a Sierra Club analysis. Consumers Energy, the company that owns the plant, reported a net loss of $180 million from the start of the DOE’s order through March 31.  

In the Oval Office last week, Wright claimed that coal power saved lives during this year’s Winter Storm Fern. Had the Trump administration not propped up 17 coal plants, hundreds of people would have died in that storm, he claimed.  

This claim is, well, just wrong.  

“During Fern’s peak demand periods, renewable energy greatly exceeded the output that grid operators had expected and that power markets had paid them to provide, while coal and gas generators fell short,” the analysis firm Grid Strategies wrote in its assessment of how the grid handled the cold snap. The coal plants that DOE forced to stay open “performed particularly poorly,” it concluded.  

Coal plants are susceptible to extreme cold; coal piles freeze and equipment can fail in the cold. And given their age, high failure rates are hardly surprising. These plants are old: Three-quarters of U.S. coal plants are more than 40 years old; about half of the coal plants that operated two decades ago have already peacefully retired.  

The grid’s future depends on adding more modern, reliable resources like solar and batteries, not forcing taxpayers to subsidize aging coal plants that repeatedly fail when they are most needed. 

We all know that demand for electricity is surging, but no new coal plant has been built in the United States since 2013. Nevertheless, while the administration also handed out millions to build two new coal plants, color us skeptical that those plants will ever be built.  

Instead, the power sources that are both cheapest and fastest to build are wind, solar, and batteries. Last year, more than 90 percent of the new electricity that was added to the grid was wind, solar, or batteries—and it’s forecast to be about that again this year.  

It’s gotten so absurd that the Trump administration is giving our tax dollars to companies to NOT build new wind power. Instead of wasting money on old coal plants, this administration should let the market work and build new renewable energy. 

Secretary Wright needs to answer for why the Trump administration is fighting the reality of economics and the will of the American people in order to give handouts to the owners of the dirtiest and ugliest power plants we have around.  

Based on the pollution they spewed last year, the 11 coal plants given federal bailouts are responsible for 450 to 650 premature deaths per year, 160 emergency room visits, and 56,130 asthma attacks in children a year.